The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
-
@samhenrigold Some of my most formative experiences as a teenager learning to be a software developer happened on a laptop with a 486SX processor (the main limitation of the "SX" family, the lack of hardware floating-point support, was the core of one such experience), 4 MB of RAM, and a ~170 MB hard drive. Granted, that was in 1996-97. Those specs were probably considered inadequate even in that time.
@samhenrigold To be clear, I wouldn't wish *that* level of austerity on any kid today. In particular, that laptop didn't have a sound card. Built-in audio and hardware-accelerated video decoding and encoding are probably musts these days. But the MacBook Neo does have those.
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
-
@samhenrigold Thank you for writing this.
I was this kid.
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
Beautifully written!
I, too, have written way too much Java on a machine that had no business running a Java IDE. It was the first computer that I had entirely to myself. It had an Intel Celeron and 128 MB of RAM, in the late 00s. This thing was begging for mercy running Borland JBuilder and couldn't handle NetBeans at all. I also had WindowBlinds on it with all kinds of strange themes.
-
@samhenrigold Plus, in a better world, the resource limits of the MacBook Neo wouldn't be felt at all except in extreme cases. There was a time when 8 GB of RAM and whatever processing power an A18 has would have seemed unimaginably vast. Maybe software developers like me can move us a little closer to that better world.
Matt, I do my best in all projects I work on
Unfortunately React still exists though. I don't think I can do anything about that. -
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
@samhenrigold love this feeling. I'm having it myself with a $200 secondhand #Pinebook Pro that I got to see what I could do with my intermediate Linux knowledge on a bare bones #ARM machine.
I've been running a tiling window manager, managing all of my homelab servers over SSH, using #GnuIMP just like I did on laptops from ~15 years ago to make wallpapers for my jailbroken #kindle
Not every machine needs to be able to do everything. Especially now with prices on the rise.
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
@samhenrigold saaaaaaam this is beautiful
-
@samhenrigold saaaaaaam this is beautiful
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
@samhenrigold this is a great essay! /gen
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
@samhenrigold this brought me back to a time long-forgotten when I used to play World of Warcraft on my 12” G4 PowerBook that took me many summers to save up and buy. If I didn’t put it on the laptop cooling pad, the fans couldnt keep up and it would run like a Keynote presentation. I should dig that thing out of storage.
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
RE: https://hachyderm.io/@samhenrigold/116216357692725093
@samhenrigold I am internally workshopping how to work "ceiling made of web browser" into a work conversation.
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
@samhenrigold this is lovely! Totally agree.
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
@samhenrigold this is awesome
i remember hackintosh-ing my $500 Asus laptop because I wanted to run OSX and couldn’t afford a Mac. I’m very excited to see the Neo power the next generation of kids. I only hope it inspires them the same way it did me. -
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
@samhenrigold if my old laptop from 2017 didnt have a pretty underpowered APU, i wouldnt have spent so much time learning to optimize windows 10 to its maximum efficiency (knowledge that i still apply on linux DEs, even in much more capable hardware).
if it wasnt because of its slow HDD, i wouldnt have been able to have a triple-boot setup to known if linux was right for me (the HDD was very slow, but it was 1 TB, at a time when similarly priced alternatives with a much faster SSD were 250 GB. Would have worked better, but wouldnt have given me space to experiment with partitions and linux)
if it wasnt because of my first tablet being a dual-core with 1 GB of RAM in 2017, i would likely not bother completely closing the apps as opposed to just getting out of them today, like everyone else i know does, because i would assume it doesnt make an impact on performance nor battery life
the best way to learn about computers is having hardware restrictions. Not software, those prevent you from learning. Hardware restrictions, which instead teach you. And then there's also the needs of each person; not everyone needs a supercomputer for their use case (my dad's intel celeron computer from 2019 with 8 GB RAM is still pretty good for his use case)
the macbook neo is surprisingly the first apple product in my life that i would unironically recommend to some people
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
@samhenrigold what an amazingly thoughtful text.
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
@samhenrigold > I edited
SystemVersion.plistto make the “About this Mac” window say it was running Mac OS 69, which is the s*x number, which is very funny.i lol'd
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
@samhenrigold i love this, the first review or such on a piece of tech that I feel touches on what computing's supposed to feel like.
Reminds me of when I was that age, messing around with Windows 98 dll's. Countless reinstalls from mom until I learned what I shouldn't touch. Finding tools to burrow around in said dll's. Finding random little apps in the system folders. Editing bitmaps inside the system with mspaint just because I could.
-
@samhenrigold > I edited
SystemVersion.plistto make the “About this Mac” window say it was running Mac OS 69, which is the s*x number, which is very funny.i lol'd
@samhenrigold after finishing reading i can say this was a wonderful journey down nostalgia lane. i never used a mac as a kid, but the feelings ring true for any little computer kid
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
@samhenrigold @timixretroplays Great essay! This resonated a lot with me.
I learnt how to program on a Commodore 64 and Amiga – extremely limited machines by today’s standards. When I hit the limits of what I could do tinkering in BASIC on them in high school I popped the hood and taught myself how to code in assembler to make things run faster.
Fast forward 35 years and I now have a PhD in computer science and work at Apple.
-
The MacBook Neo is such an interesting machine that it coaxed a thousand-word-essay out of me: https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/
@samhenrigold this post resonated with me so much and reminded me of using a family iMac as a kid. it was a core 2 duo with a pretty pedestrian AMD graphics card and 4GB RAM, and i was 100% running very hard against all of those limits (that i just did not understand yet). so many memories brought back. thank you
️
